


Adrift

by Jennifew



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennifew/pseuds/Jennifew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As with so much else where she was concerned, Franz Joseph didn't understand his wife's reaction to their son's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fyre

 

 

Through the shock and the disappointment, there was confusion. Rudolf's death had hit them all hard--it was completely unexpected, and although Franz Joseph's hopes that his son would some day live up to the Habsburg name had been waning for more years than he cared to recall, he had nevertheless wanted it to _be_ his son who succeeded him, not one of his brothers or nephews. Now, even that hope was dashed.

But that didn't explain Elisabeth's reaction. For all that they had both caused him no end of trouble in the past, she was no closer to Rudolf than she was to Gisela. He had never understood his son any better than he understood his wife, but he was certain of that much at least. So he couldn't comprehend why she had started spending all of her time in the Kapuzinergruft, mourning the loss of a child she'd never had time for while he was alive. Had Marie Valerie been the one lying there, so still and cold, he would have expected such an outpouring of grief...but that was not the case.

Once, he gathered the courage to ask his friend about it, but she had no answers either. In fact, her characteristic reticence to speak the slightest ill of the Empress, even to agree with a statement of his own, left her unwilling to concede even that with their elder children Elisabeth had never been the sort of mother one would expect to fall apart so completely at such an event. He was left to wonder about the change in silence.

Elisabeth's unexpected strength, so welcome in those first horrible hours, seemed to have abandoned her once their son was entombed, and as was so often the case, he didn't know what he might do to help her--or if she would even accept his help if he did. All he could do was stand by and watch as his ever-elusive wife slipped even further away from him.

 


End file.
